67. The Anti-Burnout Podcasting Strategy

Feeling overwhelmed trying to keep up with your podcast? Burnout is real, and it’s one of the biggest reasons podcasts disappear. But staying consistent doesn’t have to mean running yourself into the ground.

In this episode, I’m breaking down a sustainable podcasting workflow that actually fits into your life without feeling like another thing on your endless to-do list. Whether you’re a busy mom, entrepreneur, or just feeling stretched too thin, these strategies will help you stay consistent without stress and keep your podcast running without sacrificing your sanity.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

- Why podcast burnout happens (and how to avoid it)
- How to stay consistent without podcasting taking over your life
- The 3 biggest shifts to make your podcast more sustainable
- Why perfectionism is killing your progress—and what to do instead
- How to batch your content so you’re never scrambling last-minute

Your Anti-Burnout Podcasting Plan in 3 Steps
1️⃣ Rethink Your Posting Schedule -You don’t have to post weekly to be successful.
2️⃣ Batch Your Content Like a Pro - Batch recording is your secret weapon for consistency without stress.
3️⃣ Let Go of Perfectionism - Done is better than perfect.

Episode Mentioned: 4. How Much Should You Edit Your Podcast?

🎧 Ready to Make Podcasting Easier? Join Podcasting on Autopilot!

🚨 If podcasting feels overwhelming, you’re doing too much manually. AI can make your workflow faster, smoother, and more sustainable.

📌 Podcasting on Autopilot teaches you how to:
✅ Streamline your workflow using AI (without losing your voice)
✅ Batch record, edit, and create content in half the time
✅ Use AI-powered strategies to grow your audience & monetize
✅ Create systems that keep your podcast running, even on busy weeks

🎟️ Doors are open now! Join Here

💬 Let’s Keep the Conversation Going
DM me on Instagram or Threads: @SONIVIAStudios
Email me: rue@sonivia.com

Music Credit: Up An Octave Theme by Rue Spence with additional vocals provided by Darnell Spence

Up An Octave is hosted by Rue Spence of Sonivia. Up An Octave is a podcast for women and nonbinary people who are ready to take up space in podcasting to share their voices with the world.

Transcript

 Hello, hello, and welcome back to Podcasting Up an Octave.  If you are listening to this the week it comes out, then hi, I missed you last week. Also, you can hear in my beautiful voice that I am still getting over RSV,  which was not fun in my household. My two year old got it, it turned into pneumonia for her, and then she gave.

Both me and my husband RSV as well. So our house has been a little, uh,  loud and gross this week. And, well, last week was supposed to be my batching week because since life has been lifing I was going to be kind of right up against the barrel with my batching, and surprise! This is what happens sometimes and why I advocate batching. 

 But I, I do take time away from this because typically  I would encourage my clients to not make a huge deal of missing a week or making a huge deal of the circumstances around that, but in the sake of my interest of transparency and teaching you why I make the choices that I make and why things happen in podcasting the way  I want to tell you  more about what this experience is like in my eyes.

As both a busy mom and a podcasting professional. And the first thing with that is that it's not the end of the world. I threw something up on my Instagram stories and was just like, Hey!  I'm really sick right now. My kid's really sick right now. I've been in the ER twice in the last couple days with her.

Like, there are more important things than podcasting.  And the amazing thing is that I haven't lost,  is that I haven't lost any money over this. Like, my clients didn't immediately drop me and go, Oh my god, you're inconsistent. Goodbye. I'm still getting listens on other episodes. And the world has continued to spin, allowing me to be the mom that I need to be and to practice my own self care. 

So I want to talk about,  so I wanted to take a moment to talk about that because I think so often we get stuck in this cycle of perfectionism, and God, I know I do.  And while if you do work with me, you're gonna know that I will gently nudge you and be like, hey! Need to make sure there's an episode going out this week, and that is because I believe in the value of consistency, but there is also value in rest, and that's what I tell my clients when they hit me up and say, Hey, I have a migraine, or hey, my kid is sick, or things are just not working out this week.

Like, there is no pressure to have that perfection, but of course I am gonna pressure you. But of course, I am going to try and push you to be your best. I see podcast,  I see my role as a podcast professional as a personal trainer. No, I can't do the work for you, but I am going to push you to be your best.

But like what I think a good personal trainer does, I will also encourage that you prioritize rest when your life or your body is demanding it. 

And I also don't see the value of just phoning it in for the sake of having an episode.  Sure, when I got back from,  or breaking your neck to make sure that you have one. Sure, when I got back from the ER with my daughter at 11pm last Monday, I could have forced myself to record with my scratchy barely there voice, worrying about my kid who wouldn't take her meds,  stressing out over the fact that I just watched her have a chest x ray and she has pneumonia, which is terrifying as a mom of a toddler person. 

But I didn't. I granted myself the self acceptance of resting. And I think it's really interesting that all of this is coming up for me right now, given that I'd already planned out my next few episodes. Like I'd said, I was about to batch when I started to A, lose my voice, and was B, spending a whole bunch of time in the ER. 

But I want to talk a lot. In the next few episodes, but 

I want to talk in the next few episodes about being sustainable, building a sustainable pod, building a sustainable podcasting workflow, especially for people who are in very busy seasons of life, whether that's motherhood, grad school, you name it. And especially for my entrepreneurs who need efficiency and want to create content without losing their minds. 

So, today we are talking about the anti burnout podcasting strategy and being consistent without overwhelm.  And I don't think consistency means never taking a week off. I consider myself very consistent and I'm very intentional about my weeks off for the most part. But sometimes life is gonna life and you just do your best.

That doesn't ruin everything. Back to the personal training and fitness allegory. That one cookie is not going to ruin your life. That one missed workout is not going to ruin your progress. The same is true for podcasting. One week off because you are taking care of what needs to be taken care of is not going to be life or death for your podcast. 

But I know how much that perfectionism creeps in. I know how it feels to want to be consistent, to want to have this amazing high impact piece of your business or something that just feels good to create.  But then sometimes it ends up just feeling like another thing on your to do list, that every time you sit down to record, you're like, oh my gosh,  I just, I can't keep up.

It feels Sisyphean. I feel like I'm just chasing and chasing and chasing after this and I can't get out from under it.  I've been there. Trust me, I've been there. As I was sitting in the ER last week, I was there. It is not something that truly goes away. It is something that you manage. And having support helps you.

I,  I unfortunately am my own podcasting professional, and so I rely on myself to do all of those tasks. I am a team of one. And so if you are in a similar spot like me, where you are also a team of one for your podcast,  Give yourself some grace.  Podcast burnout is real, and it is the number one reason that so many podcasts just disappear.

We call it pod fade in the industry, and it's where, you know, people are really into it. They're like, feeling it. They're like, yeah, I love recording my podcast.  And they'll be like, next week, we're going to talk about this. And next week was six months ago.  The good news is that that doesn't have to be your story.

Today I'm going to break down exactly how to create a sustainable podcasting workflow. One that actually fits into your life without feeling like just another thing on your to do list. 

So I want to give you three quick shifts that you can use to make your podcast stay consistent without overwhelming you, stretching you too thin or leaving you in a position that is a slippery slope to podfade.  So the first one is rethinking your posting schedule. This is your permission slip to not have to post weekly.

There is no right way. to have a podcasting schedule. There are shows that upload every single day. There are shows that upload twice a week. There are shows that upload once a week. There are shows that upload bi weekly, monthly, quarterly even, seasonally. You get to set the tone for what feels right. And you also get to change that.

If you come to a place, there's a fork in your road and you're like, either the podcast stops or I need to scale back. You are allowed to make the choice that feels right for you. But scaling back is always an option.  If Weekly works for you and feels good, that's amazing. But if it doesn't, it's not a failure. 

The thing that is important for the algorithm, which I know is something that we talk about a lot,  is making sure that your consistency isn't, is, is,  But the thing that's important for the algorithm means unpacking what the word consistency means. Consistency doesn't mean posting, posting, posting, posting.

Consistency means training the algorithm what to expect from you. So my show comes out every Tuesday. Last week, I probably peaked the algorithm's  I probably perked up the algorithm's ears a little bit by not showing up. I'm right back on course, and I'm here this Tuesday, making my magic again, and the algorithm's gonna go, oh, okay, here she is.

That was weird.  But if I was to post this Tuesday, and the next Thursday, and then the Wednesday after that, and then a random Sunday, but then also Tuesday, the algorithm wouldn't know what exactly to do with me.  And so sporadic posting is what we mean when we say consistency. We want to upload on a schedule as opposed to just whenever the feeling strikes. 

Now that does work a little bit differently with seasonal, and that's where having your own audience and really bringing people into the show rather than relying on algorithms is impactful and important. But there is no right or wrong way to have your schedule work for you. The goal is  The goal is to create a schedule that you can actually keep up with.

There's no shame or guilt in any of this. There's just the rhythm that feels right for you.  And if your show is really like notes based or research based, or there's a lot of backend stuff that goes into it,  considering something that's like biweekly giving you more time in between to really catch that rhythm  is going to lead to.

better audience responses and more downloads because your content is going to be more intentional and less rushed. You're going to be giving people better quality work. Like, for example, with, you know, this episode, having that little extra time, having that week to just focus on recovering and getting my family safe and healthy again, means that I have come to you fresh and excited to make this, as opposed to exhausted, having even less of a voice and worrying about my kid's fever the whole time. 

Coming to it in a place where you actually feel good to create is always going to resonate on the microphone.  The second shift you can make is, of course, yes, batching your content. This is the secret weapon of every podcaster who still wants to have a life. Batch recording is a lifesaver.  And I felt that for myself last week when I was like, I'm not going to be able to get my batching done.

And then that turned into, I'm not even going to have an episode this week. You know, I had that moment of like, oh. This sucks. And I was like, I wish I'd still had batched content because  I, I just, I wasn't able to create anything. And so instead of waking up each week, you know, the day before your release thinking, Oh my God, today's the day. 

You take one chunk of time, you get into your flow, and you knock out two to four episodes in one go. And the magic here is that you are not having to spend the time resetting your equipment if you don't have a full time studio, or mic checking, or getting things to sound good. Like, if you can just knock out four episodes in one batch, Like, it's just so much easier.

And also it's one of those things, too, that like, especially I noticed this in my clients who do Batch, but also my clients who just have longer episodes. By the time that we're on that second or third episode that they've recorded, or on a longer episode just like half an hour in,  you hit that flow where things just really start to feel good and natural. 

And you get to decide how much content feels right to batch. If you have 20 minute long episodes like I shoot for, you can bang out four or five episodes in the amount of time it takes to set your kids up with a movie in the other room. Like, no shame in that game.  If you have a longer episode  If you have a longer episode structure, like two hours like some podcasts do, it may be less feasible.

You may be looking at two episodes max, just because you're human and that's a long time to be talking. 

But this also allows you to really get into that creative zone without being pulled right back out of it. And I think that that's really where the magic happens. Like, I know for my husband, he is preparing to deploy soon. And so there is going to be a lot of batching in my future, just because when he's gone, things are going to get a lot less reliable for me.

So knowing that I'm not having to set up my microphone. Wait until my girl is quiet and like, then bang it out or try and whisper after bedtime. Like, that feels so much better to me than the panic of it being, oh my god, new episode comes out tomorrow and I still haven't recorded.  So, a simple batching rhythm can look like spending one week planning out your topics.

You know, that's hopefully you have an episode bank. I talk about that in my podcasting on autopilot course, but having an episode idea bank or brainstorming or using listener feedback to just get the concept. To just get the concept of what your next few episodes are going to look like, write out your notes, do any research that you need to do if you have a research based show, or coordinate your guests, whatever that kind of pre planning phase looks like for your podcast. 

Week two, get those episodes recorded, set yourself aside a day, go get you a cute little iced coffee, and then bang them out. Just get them done, get through it, and  and then get back to your real life. Then week three is editing or prepping out.  Then week three is editing, prepping your social media assets, whatever your post production stuff looks like, or outsourcing.

Hey, no shame in that game at all. Hit me up.  And then week four is when you get to schedule everything out. and rest.  This works because you are not switching gears every week. You get to spend more time in each zone as opposed to trying to do a little bit of everything all at once. Your episodes are going to feel more, your episodes are going to feel more cohesive, less chaotic,  and I don't know, it's kind of like  And maybe this is, like, not something that's going to work for my ADHD people as well.

But I sometimes struggle with, like, when I'm doing housework, flitting around between tasks. And I can feel, because I probably have a touch of ADHD myself, or it's just a byproduct of living in this modern age. I don't know. I don't have any kind of formal diagnosis on that. But I find that I flip between tasks or rooms, and then I get more overwhelmed, where I'm like, Oh my god, I'm not seeing any progress, because I've done 15 percent on five tasks.

And I'm like, okay, well, I would be done, basically, with this task, if I just stayed in this one room. And it's kind of the same idea with batching your content in these different shifts where it's like, cool, if I am batching out all of my recordings, batching out all of the editing, batching out all of the social media,  it lets me stay in that one mindset or that one room until I see the progress through to completion. 

And number three, this is a big one. This is something that we've kind of touched on already.  Something that we've kind of touched on already and it is perfectionism. This is a big one. Stop over editing. I'm just going to say it.  I'm just going to say it. Perfectionism is a podcast killer. You want your show to sound great.

I want your show to sound great. But there is a difference between polished and paralyzed. And most of your listeners are A, listening over their car's Bluetooth, which kind of sounds like crap anyways,  but also they don't notice or care about the weird breath or your sixth like or um. Let your episodes be real.

Let them be human. Let them be done. Now, of course, I am still an advocate of editing your show. I really, it grinds my gears when I hear something that is completely unedited, because I think editing shows not only your audience, but yourself, that this is something that you care about and something that matters. 

But it doesn't have to be pristine.  Set a time limit for how long you're going to edit.  I use the rule of thumb that your editing process should be no longer than two.  I set a rule of thumb that your editing process should be in a ratio of two to one for your recording length. So if your podcast episode is 30 minutes, it should take you no longer than one hour to edit it. 

And trust me, I know that that might make you go, what? And make like the Tim, the Toman,  because I, I've talked about it on this show before, but my very first episode of my first show, I spent over eight hours editing it and I go back and I've listened to it and it sounds like hot garbage because I edited it to death. 

So choose how much editing feels right. I have a whole episode on it. I will link in the show notes,  but.  Don't break your neck spending so much time in editing.  Also, use templates for  Also, make sure that you have presets and templates for your workflow in your  DAW. So that's like having your EQ set and, you know, having, making sure that your LUFS are always set so that you can just go in and click, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Like while my EQ is processing, I'm sending emails or doing literally anything else. I'm not having to click around and make sure it sounds right. I just have the EQ.  Set for my voice in my space, ready to go. And it is a time saver. 

And then one little bonus that I'm going to give that's a slight little system or shift is using templates for your show notes. Now, whether or not you're using my BFF chat GPT, or you're using the templates and the guides that I have in the podcasting on autopilot course or not, having a template that you or your AI assistant follow every week.

is going to make the show notes process of your podcast feel that much easier. 

All right, let's wrap it up and get out of here before I lose my voice again.  So, your anti burnout plan in three quick steps. Choose a schedule for uploading that supports you and doesn't drain you. Batch your content so you're not stuck in this Sisyphean week after week scramble, and let go of perfectionism.

Done is better than perfect. Just about always. 

If you found this episode helpful, do me a favor, share it with your podcasting bestie who is on the edge of burnout. Help pull them back from the ledge and get them feeling good about their podcast.

All right, that's it for today. Come hang out with me on Instagram and threads at SONIVIA Studios. And I will talk to you next week, wishing you and your family health and ease and comfort.  Also manifesting that in my own life. And thank you, thank you, thank you for helping me take podcasting up an octave.